


Underwater

by Emilia0001



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Natsume Takashi's Terrible Childhood, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 15:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18153566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilia0001/pseuds/Emilia0001
Summary: "I'd be messed up if I were you."Takashi smiles and nods and a small, forgotten corner of his heart rots. "That's true."





	Underwater

“I'd be messed up if I were you.”

He says it with no bite, but he's as thoughtless as any average teenager. Although he says it not unkindly, a little vacant part of Takashi's heart rots. Atsushi hits Satoru over the head for it and Takashi laughs, seconds and words away from just walking away.

“That's true,” Takashi says, and somehow feels like a liar for not being messed up enough. It's weird, how one can feel inadequate in the strangest moments. There must be some senseless kind of mental gymnastics that he's worked his way through to get to that emotion, but he can't find it in himself to painstakingly walk backward to detangle them. So he lets them be.

He feels like crying, at something so small, at something so vacant of cruelty. But he smiles and folds inwards in a way that he can't help, and as such he's ended up an open book.

Satoru stares at him, stammers for the right words, but Atsushi stops him.

“I mean, we don't know much about the - the before, I suppose. But if you ever need a chance to sort your thoughts out, we'd gladly listen.”

Takashi believes him, brands the vigorous nodding from Satoru as unquestionably and wholly genuine, but instead, he gets an incredibly strong and sudden urge to bite back, somehow, in any way. Because here he is, transparent thanks to completely avoidable circumstances. He's not a bloodthirsty person by nature and vengeance isn't a card he saves, but he’s also incredibly impulsive and has a somewhat short temper in the sense that he keeps his emotions close to the surface.

He's unpredictive, at the best of times.

The tips of his fingers prickle with discomfort and his shoes are like lead when he moves.

“I'm not-” His brain is like putty and he imagines it squelching around within the confinement of his skull, childhood horror scene on the inside of his eyelids. And next thing he knows he's crying in an empty classroom, head spinning. There's no reason why he should be like this, he thinks, heels of his palms pressing his eyes back into his eye sockets so that it hurts.

Maybe it's just the timing; the throat of a flask neglecting the content space. And then, when it rains it pours until someone forces their arm around his shoulder although he flinches and carries half of his weight during the short trip to the infirmary.

“I hate all of you!” He cries, screams. His hands are balled into fists over the broad of their chest and he bangs on it with the strength of a gust of wind until it's just mumbling. And then, when it is, he lets himself rest against it in defeat.

The hands on his back are big, but they're impossibly warm and comforting.

“Natsume,” he says, leans down to whisper. “What's going on?” Takashi rubs his head against Kaname's shirt. His hair is like a nest.

“What's wrong?”

But something in Kaname's voice tells Natsume he has already heard what's happened.

“I want to go home,” he says instead, voice hoarse and muffled into his shirt. He wants to make sure that Touko is really there, wants to see the knowing smile on Shigeru's face when Nyanko-sensei does something harmlessly mischievous so that he can know that they're there.

He wants for the person he's being hugged by to be Satoru; Not because he dislikes Kaname's familiar, warm and caring little fort, but because he wants to make it all undone. He was the one who made it big, ugly. He's the one who's crying, not Satoru. He finds it somehow unfair, how incredibly lonely it can feel in the presence of friends.

“Natsume,” Kaname says, voice a low, comforting rumble. He can feel it, like a calm earthquake, running through him. “You're okay. Nobody's angry with you. All Nishimura wants to do is apologise, okay?”

He says it in a way that only Kaname can; a whisper so low he could imagine he imagined it, but with so much conviction, so much strength. As if he's reading Takashi's mind, he says just the right thing. “Is it okay if I go get him?”

Takashi nods near violently against his chest, and then when Kaname leaves, he's left to hold himself together alone. The clock ticking is a comfort, lulling but far too slow and distant. He settles on studying out the window, spring warm and welcoming in a way that makes Takashi want to move. Far, far away. He studies the movement outside, birds emitting faint singing. It almost sounds stressful in a way that happiness only can. He rests his chin on the shelf which he's made out of his folded legs and arms. He’s toed off his shoes and they lay sprawled on the floor in a way that seems awfully symbolic.

He has his back to the door but he hears when it creaks and the steps that follow. He closes his eyes, but that doesn't stop him from feeling the tentative hand on his shoulder and then on his knee. When he peeks, Satoru is trying to see through Takashi's fringe, face solemn and painted with guilt but unblemished by tears.

It stings, just a little, the way Takashi is the only weak one, crying over nothing, while he's watching his friend sad for his sake, of all things. It's a mixture of shame and envy that he feels; selfish in a way that makes him coil inward in disgust at the way that he is.

He thinks that maybe it would've been better if he never came, never stayed. Never made this his home.

“I hate all of you”, he repeats instead and Satoru's breath hitches at the lack of bite in his voice. It's a voice filled with hurt and misguided regret.

So Satoru takes his face in his hands and rub his thumbs under Takashi's eyes and says; “You don't.”

He forces him to stare at Satoru; When he tries to hide behind his eyelids, he pulls at his earlobes, not unkindly.

“You're scared and I'm tactless, but Natsume doesn't hate anybody.”

And he looks at Takashi, and his eyes are as kind as his voice, his face is unblemished and Takashi is jealous and everything hurts, aches dimly, in the same way that that hearing dilutes under water.

He doesn't want Satoru to feel this pain in his life, ever. He just wants him to entertain the thought of how it might be.

“I don't” He admits, feels a wobble on his lip and the way his emotions are laid bare onto Satoru.

Before he's aware of it himself, he leans forward, feels Satoru's breath over his lips. It’s sloppy, but Satou doesn't move away. He keeps his hands cupping Takashi's face and pulling at his lobes comfortably.

He wants him to understand. He doesn't think he can, and he finds, somehow, that that's okay. It's not like Takashi has ever given him a chance to try, anyway. Maybe the kiss isn't necessary for that, but it's stopped being about that.

Maybe he should allow himself a little kindness, even if he still feels like he's underwater, even if he always will, maybe it's okay to not only have that.

And Satoru leans in this time, sweetly and kindly and searching and not exactly understanding but trying.

“I'm sorry” they echo and look exactly as distraught as the other one for feeling in the wrong.

Satoru smiles and shakes his head after an outdrawn staring contest, and Takashi says; “I want to go home.”

Satoru kisses his crown and the smile changes into something small and ugly, sad but relieved and somewhat proud. The words are left unspoken, but Takashi knows what Satoru is saying anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, thank you for reading!
> 
> I have about 247 works, completed and everything, collecting dust in my library but somehow I'm uploading my 1 am insomnia thoughts. It goes without saying, my self-confidence level is at rock bottom.
> 
> I feel as though I have to mention this every time, but English is not my first language! It's a language that has never made sense and never will, so there's that.


End file.
